is it me or are Maxtors total crap?

[John Smith]

There are different sizes, which ones should I get for the HDs?

Get these:

Acoustifan Anti-Vibration Gel Mounts - 4 pack (FG-000-AF)
A pack of four soft gel-like fan mounts that will help to greatly reduce
transmitted vibrational noise from case fans, by isolating the mounted fan
from the case chassis. These mounts are designed for damping high-frequency
vibrations. They can be positioned in standard fan mounting holes, and are
designed to be used with standard fan mounting screws.

- Suitable for Plate Mounting Hole: 4.6 - 5.6mm diameter
- Suitable for Mounting Plate Thickness: 0.8 - 1.2mm
- Hardness: Shore A < 40
- Recommended Compression: 5% of height
- Operational Temperature Range: -20°C to +70°C




Price: £2.50 (£2.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)

 

[nooneimportant]

My Western Digital 200GB is fairly noisy... Its that special Edition
one with the 8mb cache. Anyway, sounds like a traink clacking around
on the tracks.

My WD1200 is darn near silent, its the 120GB SATA Special Edition. Runs
fast, and very very quiet, something i understand is rare for a WD drive, I
can hear it spin up when Boot, other than that I can't hear it over the PS
fan. When its being accessed the only clue i have is the LED on the case,
and if i pay very very close attention I can hear a faint "bump" from the
heads doing their dance(kind of a mix between the click of some drives, and
the old "beep" from older drives).

 

[John Smith]

I had a look at overclockers, (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Fan_Grills_and_Fan_
Accessories_34.html)
but I'm a little confussed by what item you are refering to. Is it the

'Acoustifan Anti-Vibration Gel Mounts' or the 'Vantec

Vibration Dampening Kit'?

It's the 'Acoustifan Anti-Vibration Gel Mounts' - designed for fans but
work superbly to rest your HD on - a friend uses two for each screw-hole but
I found four to be just fine.


John.

 

[half_pint]

My WD1200 is darn near silent, its the 120GB SATA Special Edition. Runs
fast, and very very quiet, something i understand is rare for a WD drive, I
can hear it spin up when Boot, other than that I can't hear it over the PS
fan. When its being accessed the only clue i have is the LED on the case,
and if i pay very very close attention I can hear a faint "bump" from the
heads doing their dance(kind of a mix between the click of some drives, and
the old "beep" from older drives).

Wow a WD which isn't noisey!
Are you sure it hasn't died :O|

 

[nooneimportant]

drive,

Wow a WD which isn't noisey!
Are you sure it hasn't died :O|

If it has it did a great job of expanding my RAM into a massive ramdisk,
then got it slow enough to look like a HDD..... To be honest I do have a
slight problem with my machine... it taught me what a fast PC is supposed to
run like... and i want it to be faster now!!! (isn't that a cosumer paradox
principle? been a while since i took buyer behavior in college) Guess i can
always OC, but as i'm fixin to move to FL for more skool i can't afford to
kill this machine... it needs to last 2 years at least.....

 

[Michael Rodgers]

I've had my maxtor 80Gb for four years.

Were they even available in 2000?

 

[Isaac Kuo]

My WD1200 is darn near silent, its the 120GB SATA Special Edition. Runs
fast, and very very quiet, something i understand is rare for a WD drive, I
can hear it spin up when Boot, other than that I can't hear it over the PS
fan.

I have a WD1000 which WAS "darn near silent", until I put it in
a quiet computer. Only then could I hear the annoying high
pitched drive whine. Same with a 40gig Maxtor.

OTOH, I have another WD1000 of the same model which is so loud
that I need to close the door to my file server room when it
spins up so I don't hear it in the rest of the house. It sounds
like a jet airliner taxiing for takeoff, overwhelming the noise
of literally everything else in 4 computers (which have not been
modified/designed for quietness).

Isaac Kuo

 

[JAD]

OTOH, I have another WD1000 of the same model which is so loud

that I need to close the door to my file server room when it
spins up so I don't hear it in the rest of the house. It sounds
like a jet airliner taxiing for takeoff, overwhelming the noise

you don't feel that this is over the top? What do you guys do?... kill
all the birds and crickets etc. around your place...maybe shoot the
kid with the squeaky bike chain?

 

[CBFalconer]

you don't feel that this is over the top? What do you guys do?...
kill all the birds and crickets etc. around your place...maybe
shoot the kid with the squeaky bike chain?

I had a neighbor in Maine with a fair sized pond, full of croaking
bullfrogs. He got annoyed at them, and exterminated them. Next
year he had a bumper black fly crop (known as the Maine state
bird). It took over 5 years to return to normal.

 

[Dorothy Bradbury]

Re gelmounts...
o Most are based on a polyurethane foam with high plasticisers
---- Sorbothane is an example of a such branded material
o They are viscoelastic materials
---- basically offering better absorption of vibration than rubber

Rubber will do ok, but the proper mounts will do a little bit better.
Frankly for quiet 7200rpm drives rubber will be ok, but when you
move into 10,000rpm & 15,300rpm drives the gel type will do better.

Do *not* overtighten, compression should usually be 5-12% and most
often at the lower end of that range. Sorbothane & gel mounts do work,
but the application has to be appropriate - as well as material choice too.

Another supplier of such mounts in the USA is McMaster-Com who
have a website and will do a wide variety of mounts to E-A-R Confor
foam (good for shock protection of drives to you bottom in a car/glider

The Gel mounts work slightly better by virtue of their integral sway space,
they are a non-space-filling design, so offer a small degree of shock resistance.
Vibration dampening is also included as a function of their material properties.

Common on high-end industrial to mil-spec laptops, from Panasonic
Toughbooks thro to the true 3yr-old-proof military grade laptops ))

Watch price tho, and ideally you want a large-washer over the screws.
2.5" drives tend to use M3, 3.5" tend to use the USA UNF sizing. A dawn
raid is planned sometime to change America over to M3, but they have made
a statement that M16 will be the chosen option should any attempt be tried
E-A-R or Gelmec in the UK show the type of screws - basically a large dia
integral washer to overlap the serrated nodules in the actual mounts, which can
readily be achieved with a washer probably for about 1/10th the price.

To shockmount a drive in a car, or your spine, use E-A-R Confor foam CF45,
which is blue and not the cheapy clone memory foams which aren't as good. It
was developed for helo seats, F16 fighter/ejector seats as the only foam which
didn't break your back on ejection by delaying & thus increasing the G impulse.

 

[Midnight Moocher]

Which Zalman CPU Heatsink are you referring to? I just visited Overclockers uk and was thinking of buying the 'Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu
Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - OEM (HS-006-ZA)'

(Sorry to pester you, but I really can't cope with the noise anymore. I need to take action.)

 

[Mike Henley]

Had my first Maxtor failure in three years yesterday despite about 75%
of the drives I've brought in the last five or six years being Maxtor.

Filled in the Advanced Replacement form yesterday and they shipped the
replacement drive today so the warranty is damned good too!

how does this advanced replacement thingie work? i have two OEM 160gb SATA maxtos.

 

[Toshi1873]

@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>, (e-mail address removed)
says...

OTOH, I have another WD1000 of the same model which is so loud


you don't feel that this is over the top? What do you guys do?... kill
all the birds and crickets etc. around your place...maybe shoot the
kid with the squeaky bike chain?

Don't mind the birds and crickets... for me it's the
constant fan/bearing noise in the office (quieter then
it was, gotta replace the ball bearing HDs in the array
still). That constant whine and air flow noise does
have an effect on me (makes it tough to concentrate).

 

[John Smith]

Which Zalman CPU Heatsink are you referring to? I just visited

Overclockers uk and was thinking of buying the 'Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu

Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - OEM (HS-006-ZA)'

(Sorry to pester you, but I really can't cope with the noise anymore. I need to take action.)

No need to worry about pestering - only too happy to help.

Yes, I have the Zalman CNPS7000A-A1Cu in two of my PCs now and have put them
into other PCs - they are a Godsend in terms of reducing noise. The first
one was a bit fiddly to put in as I was VERY nervous about damaging the
CPU - the first time I had built my own PC - but subsequent ones went in
very easily.

The OEM and boxed versions are identical except that the boxed version - £3
more I think - comes with a nice little manual showing you how to install
it. I think this is available up on Zalman's site so you don't need to pay
the extra £3 for it. Their site is down at the moment - maybe North Korea
has finally done it - so you will need to check.

You also need to check if it will fit into you motherboard. Sometimes
components like the on-board AGP slot or a Northbridge cooler, etc, might
get in the way. Your case's PSU might also get in th way. I was really
nervous first about whether it would fit into my case and mobo - you need to
check out BOTH - but I was pleased to see that Zalman have a very good part
of their site showing the various mobos it will fit and not fit.

I would recommend you get some Artic Silver 5 - you HAVE to use some
heatsink thermal compound and the newest, sexiest stuff is Arctic Silver 5
Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC) up on the Overclockers.co.uk site at
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Thermal_Materials_27.html

Let me know what CPU make you have, what motherboard and, if possible, what
make of case and I will take a look to see if it fits it or not.


John.

 

[Odie]

Do they tend to develop bad sectors but keep working, or do they fail
outright?

No, most of these are very, very dead.


Odie

 

[Isaac Kuo]

you don't feel that this is over the top? What do you guys do?... kill
all the birds and crickets etc. around your place...maybe shoot the
kid with the squeaky bike chain?

Umm...I close the door, like I said. This is only considered
"over the top" by my cats, who are offended by any closed door.

Isaac Kuo

 

[half_pint]

the



If it has it did a great job of expanding my RAM into a massive ramdisk,
then got it slow enough to look like a HDD..... To be honest I do have a
slight problem with my machine... it taught me what a fast PC is supposed to
run like... and i want it to be faster now!!! (isn't that a cosumer paradox
principle? been a while since i took buyer behavior in college) Guess i can
always OC, but as i'm fixin to move to FL for more skool i can't afford to
kill this machine... it needs to last 2 years at least.....

You are not telling me that you can do "buyer behavior" in college?

 

[Tj]

I have gone thru a few maxtors. The last one lasted 1 1/2 months. They
replaced it and I add a hard drive cooler. No problems now.

 

[Midnight Moocher]

I purchased a few things from Overclockers.co.uk earlier today (not HSF). I got the grommets and two rounded IDE cables (heat build
up is another problem with my machine). Am considering ripping off the sound pads from side panel.

Their Zalman was currently out of stock.

I think the majority of noise is coming from the hard disks.

After I fit those grommets, I will consider getting it also.

I have an Asus A7V8X with a AthlonXP 1800. Not sure about case but I don't think PSU will be a problem.

Thanks.

 

[nooneimportant]

You are not telling me that you can do "buyer behavior" in college?

Yup... actually a very difficult class! Its taught by the marketing
department, covers sociological/psychological inputs into a buying decision,
consumer behavior AFTER a purchase, etc.... I took it thinking it was gonna
be a breezer of a business elective, like the generic Marketing class....
boy was i wrong! That class was in the top 10% of difficult classes I took,
and in IT there are some real brainbenders (but not as bad as engeneering
(or spelling for that matter))..